PARIS: Lionel Messi set up all three goals as Paris St Germain overturned an early deficit to beat 10-man St Etienne 3-1 and extend their lead atop Ligue 1 to 12 points but the victory was marred by an injury to star striker Neymar.
The Brazil forward was stretchered off in the 87th minute after twisting his left ankle under an awkward challenge from Yvann Macon.
“Let’s recover from this,” Neymar said on his Instagram account. “Unfortunately these setbacks are part of an athletes’ life. It is what it is, let’s put our heads up high and lets go at it! I will come back better and stronger.”
St Etienne opened the scoring against the run of play in the 23rd minute of the game played in snowy conditions. Wahbi Khazri picked out Timothee Kolodziejczak, whose shot was saved by Gianluigi Donnarumma. But the rebound fell to Denis Bouanga, who beat the Italy goalkeeper.
The hosts, languishing in the bottom two but on the back of two straight league wins, held their own against PSG but their task was made much harder on the stroke of halftime when Kolodziejczak was sent off for tripping Mbappe, who was chasing a through ball from Angel di Maria. Brazil defender Marquinhos equalised by heading home the subsequent free kick taken by Messi.
The second half was one-way traffic with further goals coming from Angel Di Maria on 79 minutes and centre-back Marquinhos with his second in time added on — Messi again providing inch-perfect passes.
Still in November, the result leaves PSG on 40 points, 12 clear of second-placed Rennes, who beat Lorient 2-0 for their sixth win in seven matches.
Olympique de Marseille are two points behind Rennes, level on points with third-place Nice with a game in hand, after beating Troyes 1-0 at the Velodrome.
Monaco and Strasbourg drew 1-1 to trail fourth place by six points while Lyon moved into seventh place by grinding out a 1-0 win at Montpellier.
Brest extended their winning run to four games courtesy of two goals from Jeremy Le Douaron in a 2-1 victory at Girondins Bordeaux.
Clermont slid to a fifth successive loss as Ghislain Konan’s stoppage-time goal gave Reims a 1-0 win.
Published in Dawn, November 30th, 2021
